A (Very) Food-a-licious Blog

His Palmolive is on the Sparrow – and other tales.

I’m kicking off Food Allergy Awareness Week on The Hopeful Foodie on a Friday, no less – not because it’s been a rough week, our bathroom is out of commission leaving us to wash our hair in the kitchen sink and Facebook is a time-sucking hole but because of the symbolic tie-in between the deep mind/body connection of self-awareness and half the country’s deadly aversion to tree nuts.

Buy that and you’ll buy anything.

Better late than never, my mom always used to say (though I think it was an excuse to skip sitting through the first three readings at church)! I’m starting this entry off with a tale that warmed my heart and gave me some encouragement after a week of, “Help yourself to some cookies, hon” and “We are closed for the next seven days -no curried goat for you.” During the next few days I’ll also be bringing in some guest editors to share their perspectives on how food allergies have changed their views on the foodie world. I’m really excited about this and hope you enjoy everything this week (or the next three days) has to offer.

There’s a funny story from my daily devotional that I’d like to share with you:

The writer tells of a friend of his – a ninety-six year old woman, sweet as a lark and blind as a bat, who lives in the little beach cottage she’s occupied for probably the last 50 years, with no plan of leaving her comfortable abode simply because it makes her happy.

Well, one morning her cat captured a sparrow, triumphantly bringing it into the house for its assumed reward ( “Look what I found, Mom!”). The woman proceeded to give the cat a fit, snatch away its fluttering prize with sponge in hand (no one interrupts Fluffy’s mom from doing the dishes) and throw it out through the front door. Only…….it wasn’t the bird she had released. It was the sponge.

Obviously, that was made known quite quickly as the tiny, hysterical sparrow didn’t exactly appreciate not only being kidnapped but now scrubbed by force!

The tale continues with the woman, near to falling she was laughing so hard, ejecting the poor sparrow from her window and trying not to sprain her face with those uncontrollable giggles of a girl much younger than her ninety-six year old self.

When Tim read this out loud Wednesday morning we could barely hold ourselves up we were laughing so hard. It made me think, though, how much this story is like life with food allergies – sometimes you feel like the blind old person, set in your ways, going about life like you normally would, only to realize that you have a sparrow in your hand instead of a sponge. Sometimes you feel like the sparrow, out of your comfort zone, drenched to the core, and wondering how you got here in the first place. Sometimes you feel like every head chef is like that murderous cat – capturing you with fancy meows and sly moves, ready to go in for the kill (only it’s your bank account and large intestine this tiger is after). And sometimes you are simply the sponge – tossed out in the wilderness wondering where all the dishes went and why you are suddenly feeling a bit left out to dry.

I guess my point is that when it comes down to whether you are a sparrow or a sponge or a giggling old lady (or that poor, disillusioned cat) you can either lie down and give up over the impending twists and turns of this saga called life, or you can laugh your ass off that you were blessed enough to make it out in one piece. Spitting out a mouthful of evil eggplant in the middle of a restaurant or making a mushroom sarcophagus with your dinner napkin might sound like the beginning of a life-long nightmare, but it’s the stories and the laughter and the near-misses in the journey that really count.

I hope you are able to embrace this Food-Allergy Awareness Week for all its irony, all its crazy stories, triumphs and low blows (and most seriously for all of those who have suffered and lost their lives due to this nation-wide epidemic we have on our hands).

May the sponge be with you!

Cellina

The Hopeful Foodie

PS: here is the link to my first column review in The Valley Times. I highlighted one of my favorite neighborhood holes-in-the-wall, Frank’s Pizza and Pasta. Mangia!